This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Raisin Bank has agreed to acquire the payment division of Bankhaus August Lenz.
The move will help Raisin Bank diversify its revenue sources by adding payment services to its product lineup.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Banking-as-a-service player Raisin Bank is adding cash and payment services to its product lineup. This comes as the Germany-based firm has acquired the payment division of Bankhaus August Lenz, a private bank headquartered in Munich. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The move will help Raisin Bank diversify its revenue sources by adding payment services. The new capabilities enable Raisin Bank to offer customers electronic payment transactions and cash solutions. Bankhaus August Lenz’s Mirko Siepmann will head up the new division, which aims to help retailers, restaurant, gas stations, and non-bank operators of ATMs, facilitate the operation of more than 4,500 ATMs in Germany.
“As a service bank, we will act much more independently and powerfully with the expansion of our payment solutions and continue our growth in the banking-as-a-service market throughout Europe advance,” said Raisin Bank Chief Commercial Officer Dr. Andreas Wolf. “With the new business area, we can position ourselves even better as a provider for bulk payments.”
Raisin Bank, previously MHB-Bank, was founded in 1973. The bank acquired European fintech Raisin in 2019 and has since been working toward its goal to become the leading banking-as-a-service provider in Europe. The bank offers digital solutions to help startups, institutional investors, and financial service providers seeking banking licenses to enhance customer and account management, payment transactions, and lending. Raisin Bank stated in today’s press release that adding payment services represents an “important strategic step on the way to becoming a powerful full-service provider.”
Innovation and regulation are the ying and yang of financial technology in many respects. To this end, we caught up with Justin Beals, co-founder and CEO of Strike Graph, to talk about the relationship between fintech innovation and fintech regulation, and why compliance is something that successful fintechs are taking seriously.
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Strike Graph specializes in helping companies secure critical security compliance certifications. These are the certifications that can both impact revenue and reduce the time to close, as well as demonstrate the maturity of an organization.
Why banks and financial services companies need a compliance partner.
The challenge (for banks) is that the standards that you’re trying to meet can be complex. It’s important to not only have technology, but (also) a provider of that technology with intelligence about how to meet the standard so that you don’t essentially spin your wheels trying to do things that don’t necessarily make you more secure and don’t necessarily impact compliance.
So when revenue is on the line – and that’s what the challenge is here – being unable to represent a security posture that meets certain standards (means) you might not get that partnership, you might not get that contract … You really need to do it efficiently and effectively and be able to maintain it for a long period of time.
On the role an effective compliance partner can play to help financial services companies
I think one of the secrets about compliance practices is that if there’s some aspect of your business that isn’t applicable to the standard, you’re actually not required to be assessed to it. And so what’s really important is to customize your security posture according to the types of risk that your business is meeting in the marketplace, and then respond to those risks. Then, (you are) able to talk to the assessor and say, “hey, look, you know we don’t necessarily have this particular risk. It’s not something we solve for and therefore it’s not something we need to be assessed for.” That way you get through the compliance process as efficiently as possible.
On Strike Graph’s approach to helping financial services companies meet compliance obligations
The secret sauce at Strike Graph is that we have a very intelligent SaaS platform that helps our customers customize that particular security posture based upon the risks that are impacting their business.
This is impacting any B2B company that’s sharing data. And that’s really how we describe our marketplace. And, of course, fintech handles some of the most precious transactions and pieces of data, and they have a long history of things like PCI DSS where compliance is really important. So they really do understand the value of having a good compliance practice.
Digital customer service firm Glia agreed to acquire conversational AI technology company Finn AI.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Glia Co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said that Finn AI is a strong fit for Glia because of its technology, market approach, and company culture.
Digital customer service firm Glia is enhancing its offering with its recent acquisition of conversational AI technology company and fellow Finovate alum Finn AI.
Financial terms of the agreement, which will integrate Finn.ai’s conversational AI solutions into Glia’s customer service platform, were not disclosed. Glia Co-founder and CEO Dan Michaeli said that Finn AI is a strong fit for Glia because of its technology, market approach, and company culture.
“This marks a new chapter for Virtual Assistants: Verticalization with Scale,” Michaeli said. “Generic ‘one-size-fits-all’ bot providers have largely failed to meet the full potential of conversational AI, leading to the emergence of vendors focusing on specific industry verticals. Until now, none of the financial services bot vendors have been able to achieve widespread adoption on their own.”
Finn AI Co-founder and CEO Jake Tyler said that joining forces with Glia will offer Finn AI scale. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Finn AI aims to transform customer engagement and increase financial literacy with its AI-powered conversational banking technology. Among the company’s clients are ATB Financial, BECU, United Federal Credit Union, EQ Bank, Civista Bank, and Truist Momentum.
According to the press release, Finn AI and Glia have a lot of shared clients, and Finn AI’s technology is already integrated into Glia. Post-acquisition, the company’s leadership team will take on leadership positions within Glia. As for Finn AI’s Canadian headquarters, Glia plans to use the location to establish a “Conversational AI Center of Excellence.”
Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company offers digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools. Glia, which has taken home 10 Finovate Best of Show awards for its live demos, most recently showcased its tools at FinovateSpring 2021. Finn AI also boasts accolades from the Finovate audience, having taken home two Finovate Best of Show awards for its demos at FinovateAsia 2016 and FinovateFall 2017.
E-commerce payments enabler SumUp raised $624 million (€590 million) in a combination of equity and debt financing this week.
The funding round was led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities.
This week’s investment gives SumUp a valuation of $8.5 billion (€8 billion).
In a round led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities – and featuring participation from funds managed by BlackRock, btov Partners, Centerbridge, Crestline, Fin Capital, and Sentinel Dome Partners – e-commerce payments innovator SumUp has secured an investment of $624 million (€590 million). The funding gives the London-based company a valuation of $8.5 billion (€8 billion). SumUp co-founder Marc-Alexander Christ said in a statement that the capital will “enable us to continue to build out our product ecosystem, expand into new markets, (and) pursue value-adding acquisitions.”
The funding was a 50/50 mix of debt and equity and includes SumUp’s first equity infusion since 2017. The company’s total funding stands at $1.6 billion – most of which is debt financing. SumUp secured €750 million in debt funding in 2021.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Christ called the company’s new valuation “true and fair”. This statement comes months after it was reported that SumUp was seeking an investment that would give the company a significantly higher valuation – to the tune of $21 billion (€20 billion). Christ suggested that the current valuation reflects “the price people put on the company in the worst of markets” and that SumUp’s valuation was unlikely to move any lower in the future.
SumUp won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013 in London. In the years since, the company has grown to serve more than four million businesses with its payment solutions that range from card readers and point of sale solutions to business accounts and invoicing. The company began this year teaming up with Worldpay from FIS to support its global expansion efforts. SumUp will use Worldpay’s global acquiring services, including authorization, clearing and settlement, dispute management and data insights.
Also this year, SumUp announced a referral deal with Latin American and European e-commerce platform PrestaShop. The partnership gave “hundreds of thousands” of merchants on the PrestaShop platform access to SumUp’s product suite of payment solutions and business tools. Nearly 300,000 websites rely on PrestaShop’s technology, and the company sees its collaboration with SumUp as part of its strategy to enable more merchants to launch and scale their businesses.
“By partnering with PrestaShop, we will continue to expand our support for digital transformation of small businesses, by ensuring their products and services are also available online for their customers,” SumUp Head of Sales and Partnerships James Henry said. “Our partnership will enable merchants with a seamless and secure payment experience for all major credit and debit cards, an important tool in enabling small business success in today’s environment.”
Founded in 2012, SumUp is headquartered in London. Daniel Klein is founder and CEO.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has seen a lot of hype since the popularity of the technology exploded in 2020. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) estimates that the U.K. BNPL market is worth $3.7 billion (£2.7 billion), and that five million British citizens have used BNPL tools since 2020. This growth is great for BNPL companies, but not necessarily so for the consumers they serve.
That’s because consumers in the U.K. are starting to take on debt to pay for purchases they’ve made using BNPL. According to a recent survey, more than 40% of U.K. consumers have done so. Citizens Advice, which conducted the survey, found that 51% of consumers ages 18 to 34 have borrowed money to pay for BNPL purchases, while 39% of 35 to 54 year-olds and 24% of people aged over 55 have done so.
The most common debt incurred to pay for purchases made using BNPL is credit card debt. Users have also borrowed money from friends and family, borrowed money from their bank overdraft, taken out loans, and have even taken out payday loans. The study also found that more than one in 10 customers of a major bank using BNPL services were already behind on their payments.
This misuse of BNPL technology is why the U.K. FCA released a set of four rules earlier this week. The agency anticipates they will protect millions of consumers.
Lenders will be required to carry out checks to ensure that loans are affordable for consumers.
Advertisements must be fair, clear, and not misleading.
Lenders will need to be approved by the FCA.
Borrowers will be be able to take complaints about BNPL schemes to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
The government will create secondary legislation by mid-2023, after which the FCA will consult on its rules for the short-term lending sector.
“Buy-Now Pay-Later can be a helpful way to manage your finances but we need to ensure that people can embrace new products and services with the appropriate protections in place,” said Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen. “By holding Buy-Now Pay-Later to the high standards we expect of other loans and forms of credit, we are protecting consumers and fostering the safe growth of this innovative market in the U.K.”
The FCA has made it clear that these regulations do not only apply to BNPL firms. Companies that extend other forms of short-term, interest-free credit will also be required to comply with the same rules. Not only that, the rules also apply to businesses who partner with a third-party lender to provide credit to their customers.
Ecommerce company Shopify has unveiled more than 100 new announcements today.
Among the top new releases are a marketplace that allows fans to use their NFTs to receive personalized benefits and a tool that allows merchants to sell to their audience on Twitter.
The announcements were made as part of Shopify Editions, Shopify’s new, semi-annual showcase of fresh tools and updates for its merchant clients.
Ecommerce player Shopify is debutingShopify Editions, the company’s semi-annual showcase of new tools and capabilities for merchant clients. In today’s announcement, the company is unveiling more than 100 new updates and launches to power what it is calling Connect to Consumer (C2C).
“Welcome to Shopify Editions, where twice a year we show you everything that we’ve been building,” Shopify stated on its website. “We know that brands need new ways to engage with their customers—and that means creating new connections. So this release of Editions features everything you need to win in the new era of commerce: Connect to Consumer.”
Here are some highlights of features Shopify has released so far this year:
Point of Sale, which helps merchants sell to customers where they are, including in-person, online, and anywhere else.
Hydrogen and Oxygen, which helps any size of merchant start, build, and deploy custom storefronts.
B2B on Shopify, an offering that enables Shopify Plus merchants to sell to other businesses on the same platform that they use for selling direct-to-consumer.
Shopify Markets, which makes it easy for merchants to engage with and sell to buyers in international markets.
Tokengated Commerce, a marketplace that allows fans to use their NFTs to receive personalized benefits such as exclusive merchandise and early access to product releases.
Twitter Sales Channel, a tool that allows merchants to highlight their products on their Twitter profile and sell to their audience on Twitter.
Tap to Pay on iPhone, which leverages a partnership with Stripe to enable Shopify point-of-sale merchants to expand into offline retail without additional hardware.
Local Inventory on Google, a tool that automatically notifies nearby customers when a product is available in store.
Shopify Functions, which allows developers to extend or replace Shopify’s backend logic with custom code.
Shopify has also released some smaller updates over the past six months. The company has added data sharing controls, money management tools, carbon neutral shipping options, and its Shopify Capital tool has increased the funding limit for first-time borrowers.
For a look into the rest of the 100+ announcements Shopify is making today, check out the Shopify Editions release page.
While many of the new releases themselves are notable, so is the way the company has decided to unveil them. By rolling up all of the new updates and releases into one large announcement, Shopify is able to make a big deal of even the smallest of updates. For fintechs with fast development cycles and international rollouts, this could be a good model for complex public releases.
Canada-based Shopify was founded in 2004 to bring ecommerce websites and tools to retailers. Since then, millions of businesses in 175 countries have used Shopify to make over $496 billion in sales. Tobias Lütke is CEO.
Two Finovate newcomers – DigiShares and the Polymesh Network – have teamed up to promote the use of tokenization to create and manage securities.
The partnership comes in the form of a grant from the Polymesh Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF), a part of the not-for-profit Polymesh Association.
DigiShares is headquartered in Denmark and demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2021; Polymesh is based in Switzerland and demoed its technology a year later at FinovateSpring 2022.
With $10 million in funding, the EDF is designed to financially support companies and projects that can bring value to the Polymesh ecosystem. DigiShares received its grant for integrating Polymesh and expanding the Polymesh ecosystem to DigiShares’ network of clients and partners. Additionally, DigiShares will facilitate the migration of its clients’ current ERC-1400 assets from Ethereum to Polymesh. DigiShares has supported ERC-1400 on Ethereum since 2019 and been an early supporter of Polymesh, as well, having joined the company’s partnership ecosystem back in January of 2021. The integration announced this week will allow issuers to DigiShares’ tokenization platform to create and manage security tokens on Polymesh.
“Polymath has been a long and trusted partner of DigiShares and we are proud to soon support the Polymesh blockchain,” DigiShares CEO Claus Skaaning said. “We believe that Polymesh has long term potential to lead the security token space.”
The grant award announcement arrives weeks after the Polymesh Association introduced its Ecosystem Development Fund, which itself follows the listing of Polymesh’s native token POLYX on Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world. The fund is a wager that financially backing businesses that can help promote wider adoption of Polymesh will prove an effective way to incentivize companies to build, integrate, and use the institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure.
“The Ecosystem Development Fund delivers two benefits to service providers,” Polymesh Association Head of Tokenization Graeme Moore said. “Successful applicants not only receive funding but they can also attract clients by adding a Polymesh integration to their roadmap.”
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, DigiShares made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateSpring 2021. At the event, the company demonstrated its white-label tokenization platform for real estate, which adds both automation and liquidity to the property market. The DigiShares platform digitizes and automates both the financing and the corporate management aspects of real estate projects. The platform also provides a bulletin board marketplace that leverages blockchain technology and peer-to-peer trading without counterparty risk.
Among Finovate’s newest alums, Polymath demonstrated its Polymath Token Studio at FinovateSpring last month in San Francisco. The Token Studio is an interface that enables the user to create, issue, and manage blockchain-based securities. “Thanks to blockchain and tokenization we can reduce the costs of creating, issuing, and managing securities by over 90%,” Moore explained from the Finovate stage in May. “Banks, custodians, transfer agents, broker-dealers and these other service providers can give their clients new and fresh experiences, and we can create new securities and new financial instruments that previously weren’t possible.”
Polymath and the Polymesh Network are based in Zug, Switzerland. Vince Kadar is Polymath CEO.
Less than a month after its FinovateSpring demo, unitQ has introduced its Impact Analysis tool.
The new offering helps businesses identify both important product quality issues in their app as well as the impact of fixing those issues.
Impact Analysis enables companies to improve their unitQ Scores, which enable businesses to accurately compare their app with rival apps in the same industry.
Product quality platform and Finovate newcomer unitQ recently launched its Impact Analysis tool. The new offering helps businesses recognize and address critical product quality issues and the impact of correcting them.
“With Impact Analysis, teams can learn what impacts fixing an issue might have on KPIs like 1-star reviews, support tickets, brand sentiment, and more – before taking action,” unitQ Product Manager Brett Caplan wrote on the company blog late last week.
UnitQ’s Impact Analysis tool works by automatically identifying user-generated issues that will have the greatest impact on product quality if fixed. These issues – which unitQ calls “Quality Monitors” – not only guide teams toward the most important product quality concerns, but also steer the team away from concerns that may seem significant, but may have a minimal or even adverse impact on an app’s unitQ Score, as well as its rating within its own marketplace (i.e., Apple App Store, Google Play Store, etc.).
The unitQ Score enables companies to compare their app’s quality — based on Apple App and Google Play stores rating and reviews – against that of other apps from the same industry. A companion assessment, the Internal unitQ Score includes everything evaluated in the unitQ Score, but also includes user feedback culled from social media such as Twitter and Reddit, as well as data from customer support and chatbot applications. The new Impact Analysis tool enables companies to see the impact of potential improvements and changes on both scores.
“A unitQ Score closer to 100 indicates a brand has few product quality issues overall,” Caplan explained. “It means that users enjoy the product, the experience is well-designed, easy to use, responsive – and is virtually free of bugs, broken flows, and operational mistakes. Higher scores equal better products, and more satisfied customers.”
The Impact Analysis tool is powered by the machine learning capabilities of the unitQ Monitor, which measures, analyzes, and visualizes the unstructured data of user feedback. The technology translates text from more than 70 languages, normalizes and removes personally-identifiable information (PII), enriches data with sentiment analysis, and appends with product metadata. By turning qualitative feedback into quantitative data, unitQ helps companies discover important insights that enable them to improve product quality.
Headquartered in Burlingame, California, unitQ most recently demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2022 in May. The company was co-founded by Christian Wiklund (CEO) and Niklas Lindstrom (CTO) in 2018. Among the company’s customers are firms such as Chime, Current, and fellow Finovate alums Klarna and Nubank.
Mastercard will welcome five fintech startups to its inaugural Start Path Open Banking Program.
The initial cohort will feature two Finovate alums: UAE/San Francisco-based Dapi and mmob, a Best of Show winner from the U.K.
The new, open banking-oriented program will enable fintechs to leverage Mastercard’s open banking expertise and market insights to scale their businesses.
A pair of Finovate alums – one from the UAE and another headquartered in the U.K. – have earned spots in Mastercard’s new open banking-focused Start Path program. Dapi, an open banking API provider based in the UAE, and mmob, a U.K.-based embedded finance innovator, will join three other fintechs in Mastercard’s three-month program.
“Open banking is a natural progression of how Mastercard has always embraced innovation and consumer trust with equal measure, and how we’ve remained a trusted partner for our customers,” Mastercard EVP for Fintech & Segment Solutions Blake Rosenthal said. “We are thrilled to launch the Start Path Open Banking program and welcome five high-growth startups from around the world to collaborate with us and accelerate open banking innovation.”
Rounding out the inaugural class are Finantier, an open finance platform based in Indonesia; Mono, a fintech headquartered in Nigeria that helps businesses access financial data and facilitate payments; and U.S.-based Paywallet, which helps lenders and other financial services companies improve payment certainty.
Mastercard’s Start Path Open Banking program is designed to work with open banking startups as they scale their businesses and explore opportunities for co-innovation. The five companies selected for this year’s program have demonstrated “strong synergies” with Mastercard’s approach to technology and consumer choice, according to a statement. The companies will spend three months working with and learning from Mastercard’s open banking expertise and platforms via its wholly-owned subsidiaries – Finicity and Aiia – both of which are also Finovate alums.
Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope earlier this year, mmob won Best of Show for its Intelligent Partnerships Infrastructure, which enables businesses to build better digital experiences via embedded finance solutions. The company, founded in 2020 by Irfan Khan (CEO) ad Arsalaan Ahmed, serves both firms looking to embed new products as well as those who want to have their own products embedded into other solutions. mmob helps businesses integrate the kind of complimentary products and services that boost conversions and create new revenue streams.
“We will be using the next three months to work with Mastercard’s teams, develop our product and introduce mmob’s solution to Mastercard’s global network,” mmob said in a statement.
In March, mmob secured $6.6 million (EUR 5.9 million) in funding. The investment came courtesy of angel investors, high net worth individuals, and banking executives. The funding will enable the company to expand in both the U.K., where it is headquartered, as well as in Malaysia. With partners including PensionBee, Anorak, Uinsure, and Superscript, mmob announced its latest partner, iwoca, back in September.
“As big banks reduce their risk appetite, we believe embedded finance is the future of SME lending,” iwoca Commercial Growth Director Colin Goldstein said when the partnership was announced last fall. “Mmob presents an exciting opportunity for us and a win-win for everyone involved in its ecosystem.”
Dapi, headquartered in the UAE, demonstrated its technology at FinovateMiddleEast in 2019. An infrastructure API technology company, Dapi facilitates connections between banks and fintechs across the Middle East. Founded in 2019 by Mohammad Aziz (CEO) and maintaining offices in San Francisco, California as well as the Middle East, the company offers both data aggregation and payment initiation services with a single integration.
“Dapi’s mission is to provide the building blocks for a thriving fintech ecosystem in emerging markets around the world,” Aziz said in an exclusive interview with Finovate. “Our API serves as the bridge between financial applications and banks, empowering developers to create digital wallets, budget trackers, investment applications, and more.”
In January 2021, Dapi raised $3 million in funding, bringing its total capital raised to $5.2 million courtesy of investors including the Pioneer Fund, Y Combinator, and BECO Capital. The company began the year partnering with NymCard, a banking-as-a-service provider headquartered in the UAE. The strategic agreement will enable end customers to top up their card accounts from any local bank account in real-time and at lower cost.
“We are very excited to have Dapi onboard,” NymCard VP of Strategic Partnerships Nabil Tabbara said. “Our strategic partnership with Dapi solves a major pain point for clients who are looking to build frictionless card programs. This is a big step forward for the region’s fintech ecosystem as we combine our effort to help them become more profitable.”
Payment and accounting platform Autobooksraked in $50 million in a Series C round led by Macquarie Capital with additional support from new and existing investors Baird Capital, Commerce Ventures, Draper Triangle, MissionOG, and TD Bank. The investment more than doubles the Michigan-based company’s total raised, boosting that figure to $98 million.
Autobooks plans to use today’s funding to accelerate distribution into the U.S. banking market.
Autobooks serves more than 60,000 small businesses with a range of tools including digital payment acceptance, online invoicing, online enrollment, accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting, billpay, and more. The company’s embedded receivables platform for small businesses enables digital invoices, payment acceptance, and automated accounting directly within their mobile banking suite.
To facilitate this, Autobooks integrates its tools with a range of digital banking providers, making its services available to over one third of the U.S. market. Companies that offer Autobooks’ invoicing and payment acceptance tools to their small business clients include Alkami, Bottomline, CSI, FIS, JackHenry, NCR, and Q2.
In addition to helping small businesses, Autobooks also has the potential to benefit banks. TD Online Accounting, which is a whitelabeled version of Autobooks’ technology, has seen deposits from its 700+ small business clients increase 65%. Simultaneously, the firm has experienced a 2x increase in product usage.
“Businesses are increasingly looking for simple, bundled solutions to get paid and automate their back-office. If the bank can’t offer these services quickly, businesses will (and have) gone elsewhere,” said Autobooks Cofounder and CEO Steve Robert. “To maintain primacy, banks must optimize legacy merchant service programs to include digital payment acceptance tools that feature self-service onboarding. Autobooks makes this possible through our payment facilitation (payfac) model, which can be enabled within days by industry leading partners.”
Autobooks averages more than 10,000 monthly enrollments and has surpassed $40 billion in transaction volume. From 2021 to 2022, the company has experienced 5x revenue growth, 3x employee growth, and 6.5x bank partner growth. Autobooks won Best of Show for its demo at FinovateFall 2021.
There is a Super App-shaped hole in the U.S., and earlier this year, F.T. Partners published a report titled The Race to the Super App that examines the most eligible companies to fill the gap.
The report details three major categories of potential Super App contenders in the U.S., including challenger banks, large fintechs, and big tech companies/ retailers. Here is a breakdown of U.S. players in each category:
Challenger banks
Upgrade
Dave
Avant
Varo
Chime
MoneyLion
Current
Mission Lane
Oportun
Large fintechs
PayPal
Square
Robinhood
Figure
Betterment
H&R Block
M1 Finance
TrueBill
American Express
Wealthfront
Affirm
SoFi
Big tech companies/ retail
Amazon
Apple
Facebook
Google
Uber
Walmart
The report takes an extensive look at the super app industry and details two Super App models. The first is the winner-take-all model. In this approach, the Super App provider begins by offering a banking service and then expands to provide a wider range of services, aiming to eventually become users’ primary financial services tool. The second model is an aggregator approach in which the Super App provider acts as a marketplace that connects users to existing financial services.
Ultimately, banks have a choice to leverage either the winner-take-all model, in which they will build their own Super App to compete with third party players, or to take a hybrid approach in which they both host their banking products on third party marketplaces and offer third party tools to their clients within their own ecosystem. In the former approach, banks will incur competition from major players. However, when taking the latter approach, banks risk relinquishing the primary banking relationship status with their customers.
Kofax is acquiring B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten.
The combined companies will offer clients a more holistic e-invoicing approach.
Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.
Intelligent automation software platform Kofax has acquired B2B e-invoicing network Tungsten for an undisclosed amount. Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish anticipates the acquisition will “provide more comprehensive and higher value invoice processing and accounts payable automation solutions” to the company’s customers.
Founded in 2000, Tungsten facilitates invoice-to-pay processes by digitalizing invoices using automation. Headquartered in London, Tungsten enables suppliers to submit tax compliant e-invoices in 54 countries. The company processes invoices for 60% of the FTSE 100 and 68% of the Fortune 500. Last year, Tungsten processed transactions worth over $270 billion for clients including Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and the U.S. Federal Government.
When combined with Kofax’s invoice processing and AP automation portfolio, the combined companies will offer a more holistic e-invoicing approach to companies across the globe. The cloud-based offering will provide solutions for direct supplier onboarding, e-invoice exchange, interoperability, scanned and OCR paper invoices, machine readable PDF invoices, PDF data extraction, and payment processing.
“Finance procurement leaders are looking beyond traditional invoice OCR and workflow capabilities to modern e-invoicing, supplier management, and value-added services – accelerating how they pay and relate with suppliers,” said Tungsten CEO Paul Cooper. “A full technology suite from Kofax will bring efficiencies to how they work with their suppliers, compliantly invoice, and focus on leveraging data to drive insights while reducing cost.”
Kofax was originally founded in 1985 and leverages robotic process automation (RPA) to automate and enhance business’ workflow. The company’s SaaS solutions automate the processing of over 60 million invoices for more than 11,000 organizations around the world. Two years after Kofax went public in 2013, the company was delisted when it was acquired by Lexmark for $1 billion. In 2017, Kofax was once again acquired, this time by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Kofax itself has made a total of 12 acquisitions, including Tungsten.
